Scarlet Springs (Ari Levinson) AU - 18+

Epilogue

Margot
3 Years Later

Driving down this stretch of road gives me chills, but I know that I have to. I've been gone for three years after all. I need to come back sometime. I've been putting it off for the last few months, talking to friends as to whether I should or shouldn't. They're the ones who told me that I shouldn't put it off any longer.

At least these are people I can trust.

News of Davy's death didn't reach me until a year after I'd run. I'd gone to Miami, hid out in a women's shelter. It was a chance meeting with an old co worker at the club that brought me the news. Davy was dead and his men had either scattered or had been arrested. The club was shut down, the girls moving all over to find work. Dancing was all they knew.

The relief washed over me. Finally I could work without fear, go out and not have to look over my shoulder. I finally found work in a bar, making friends and enough money to secure a crappy apartment. But it was enough for my situation.

Did Ari ever try to find me?

Most likely, but being at the shelter meant that he probably wouldn't have been able to,  I matter how hard he tried. He lied to me, told me I was safe when really I was in bed with the enemy.

I don't know what I see him as now. I think of him a lot, hence why I'm now in this car making the trip back to Scarlet Springs to see if he's still there.

Glancing in the rear view, I note that the other occupant in the back is still sleeping peacefully.

My daughter.

Our, daughter.

Regard,was of what happened, I'm tied to Ari forever, having discovered that I was pregnant not long after arriving in Miami and taking up a room in the shelter. Jessica was born there, helped to be raised with other mothers like me who had fled. They were wonderful, looking after her so I could work ungodly hours just to save for a place of our own.

She is the reason why I've finally bitten the bullet and come back.

He needs to know.

If he's still here that is.

As I see the motel sign now appear, I can tell it's run down, the sign itself having lost letters and the 'closed' sign that hangs beneath it also looking rusted. The place no longer looks how it used to.

I pull in and get out, looking around at the ghost of the past. There's a light from the office and I head over, trying the door and finding that it opens.

"We're closed!" A voice yells from the open door that leads to Ari's apartment, and a lump forms in my throat.

He's still here.

Now I lay eyes on him for the first time in a few years. He looks just the same. Just as good as he did back then, and immediately his face falls. "Margot?"

I burst into tears and he's immediately by my side, pulling me into the facials embrace that I've spent so long thinking about. "I looked for you, everywhere...I couldn't find you, why couldn't I find you!" He says, voice cracking under the anger and frustration that he feels at himself. Not at me. I know that much.

"I didn't want to be found". I whisper, "but I had to come back. I wanted to. So many times but never had the courage". Now I sob harder as he rocks me from side to side. "You needed to know".

He pulls away and looks at me. "Know what?" I just walk out of the office and follows. "Margot? Know what!" I open the car door and he joins my side, looking into the back at where Jessica is still blissfully unaware of what's happening. He stares at her and then at me. "Is...is she..." I nod.

"I found out after I left..."

He runs a hand through his hair and looks back at Jessica again. "What's her name?"

"Jessica...Jessica Levinson".

His face is wracked with a mixture of expressions that I just can't read. "I fucked up. I fucked up for you both...I should've just been straight with you from the start". He explains and I let him. "It started out as a bounty. It was the whole reason I brought this place, just in case you did stop in. But the more I got to know you? The more I realised just how screwed up your situation was, so I went all out to try and protect you, especially when Sammy stopped by".

"I heard your conversation in the office that morning a few days before I left. I heard you say about how it wasn't worth it, but I didn't know whether you were lying to him just so you could have the money?"

"The money? You really think I'd choose money over you? I was trying to stop him from looking. I told him that you'd probably gone just so he'd finally leave the case alone. I had planned for us to leave together before he could find you! Somewhere that neither of us would be found!"

He wanted to protect me? He wanted us to run together, to start a life...

"Then when I found your notes and that you'd found your file? I knew you'd be long gone. I killed Davy when Sammy brought him back here to take you, cut all ties. I've been hauled up in this place since then purely out of hope that you would come back here. I tried to find you, but even then I knew that I wouldn't. I could only wait for you.

I swallow the lump that's now huge in my throat, "you stayed? Even though there was every chance I'd never come back?"

He nods. "Yeah...because when it comes to you? I'd wait until I've turned to ashes".

I throw myself at him, lips sinking onto his as he holds me, the safe feeling enveloping around us. 

I want this.

I want him.

I want us.

The sound of Jessica makes up part and I take her from her car seat, now letting Ari get a good look at his daughter. "Jessie? This is your daddy..." I say as she gnaws on her fingers and utters a couple of words amongst the usual babble.

"Can I?" He now asks and I pass her to him, watching as he holds her before burying his head into her. "Hey baby girl, it's nice to meet you". He tells her softly and then looks at me. "Stay...please, I can't lose you again, not now. Look what we made", now kissing Jessica's head.

I nod and join him, both of us savouring this moment. "I'm going nowhere".

"Good, because if I do then you two are always gonna be with me. I still love you". He pulls me in so he has both of us.

My voice cracks. "And I love you too..."

And that's how we stay for a good while, the three of us just stood in the parking lot, myself and our daughter in his arms before he takes us inside.

Scarlet Springs was once a place for me to start over, it's now a new beginning, but it's most certainly not the end.